CHEAPER BOOKS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Snrely that is a sad article of yours in the Spectator of December 3rd on " Cheaper Books." You say, "As to the average Englishman, he simply hates buying books and some- times, in his eagerness to borrow, performs acts of incredible meanness. We have known authors asked to lend their own copies, by men of ten times their income ; " and so on, in the same sad strain.
That, Sir, Slay be true of some, but surely not of all. I am a very " average " Englishwoman, and yet almost the keenest
pleasure of my whole life has been to buy books. When I have made acquaintance with a noble, good, and beautiful book, I could not rest until it was mine,—my very own. The years: roll back as I write, and I see myself, five-and-twenty of them• ago, young, and just married. We had very foolishly married without and against the consent of our parents, and they (God bless them !—they are here no more) thought, I fancy, to unmarry us, by a process of starvation. Many a time (my husband dining at an eating-house) did I eat only dry bread for dinner, all the while guarding and treasuring up— chiefly tied in a corner of my handkerchief for safety, fearing,.
if discovered, it would go in beef and mutton—a sovereign given me by a cousin, and which I destined to the purchase of " Boswell's Life of Johnson."
I had to wait five months ere opportunity favoured me, and•: not until I had been some time at the Cape of Good Hope did I triumphantly carry home my volumes. But when at last I held them as my own in my eager hands, what were exile, and poverty, and vexation, in comparison ?
Sir, every book on my shelves is dear to me, for every book means a sacrifice. But for what an end ! In my many sorrows, they—my books—have been unfailing in kindness and comfort. In foolishness they have given wisdom and guidance,. they have been strength to my weakness, have helped me to help.
others, and in their possession has been deep joy ; and what is more, they have removed far from my home and from my heart that sore sorrow and trial of woman's life,—loneliness.
It is to me a small matter that I have mostly fed poorly and dressed plainly, since, by so doing, I have been enabled to gather under my roof the great and noble of the earth, who look down at me from my walls with the faces of friends. Had I (would to God I could have I) the boon of life once more- 1 should, so far as the blessed acquisition of books goes, live it all over again.—I am, Sir, &c., E. S.
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